In the Spring of 2009, the Tea Party emerged onto the American political scene. In the wake of Obama's election, as commentators proclaimed the “death of conservatism,” Tax Day rallies and Tea Party ...
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In the Spring of 2009, the Tea Party emerged onto the American political scene. In the wake of Obama's election, as commentators proclaimed the “death of conservatism,” Tax Day rallies and Tea Party showdowns at congressional town hall meetings marked a new and unexpected chapter in American conservatism. This book brings together leading scholars and experts on the American Right to examine a political movement that electrified American society. Topics addressed by the chapters include the Tea Party's roots in earlier mass movements of the Right and in distinctive forms of American populism and conservatism; the significance of class, race and gender to the rise and successes of the Tea Party; the effect of the Tea Party on the Republican Party; the relationship between the Tea Party and the Religious Right; and the contradiction between the grass-roots nature of the Tea Party and the established political financing behind it. The book provides detailed and often surprising accounts of the movement's development at local and national levels, and it addresses the relationship between the Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street movement.Less

Steep : The Precipitous Rise of the Tea Party

Published in print: 2012-08-14

In the Spring of 2009, the Tea Party emerged onto the American political scene. In the wake of Obama's election, as commentators proclaimed the “death of conservatism,” Tax Day rallies and Tea Party showdowns at congressional town hall meetings marked a new and unexpected chapter in American conservatism. This book brings together leading scholars and experts on the American Right to examine a political movement that electrified American society. Topics addressed by the chapters include the Tea Party's roots in earlier mass movements of the Right and in distinctive forms of American populism and conservatism; the significance of class, race and gender to the rise and successes of the Tea Party; the effect of the Tea Party on the Republican Party; the relationship between the Tea Party and the Religious Right; and the contradiction between the grass-roots nature of the Tea Party and the established political financing behind it. The book provides detailed and often surprising accounts of the movement's development at local and national levels, and it addresses the relationship between the Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street movement.

This chapter looks at the racial politics of the right, asserting that the “real America” narrative forwarded by the McCain/Palin campaign was rooted in the racially coded populist discourse that the ...
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This chapter looks at the racial politics of the right, asserting that the “real America” narrative forwarded by the McCain/Palin campaign was rooted in the racially coded populist discourse that the right has aggressively forwarded since the late 1970s. According to this discourse, the nation is endangered by cultural and demographic trends characteristic of the present age—non-white immigration, secular liberalism, gay rights, feminism, “black racism,” political correctness, and Islamic terrorism. Obama was viewed as the embodiment of these threats, a foreign other who stood in opposition to the interests of “everyday Americans” and the nation itself. The chapter illustrates how a vote for the Republican ticket is supposedly a vote to uphold the sanctity and security of conservative, white, Christian America.Less

In Defense of the White Nation : The Modern Conservative Movement and the Discourse of Exclusionary Nationalism

Enid Logan

Published in print: 2011-10-01

This chapter looks at the racial politics of the right, asserting that the “real America” narrative forwarded by the McCain/Palin campaign was rooted in the racially coded populist discourse that the right has aggressively forwarded since the late 1970s. According to this discourse, the nation is endangered by cultural and demographic trends characteristic of the present age—non-white immigration, secular liberalism, gay rights, feminism, “black racism,” political correctness, and Islamic terrorism. Obama was viewed as the embodiment of these threats, a foreign other who stood in opposition to the interests of “everyday Americans” and the nation itself. The chapter illustrates how a vote for the Republican ticket is supposedly a vote to uphold the sanctity and security of conservative, white, Christian America.